Monday, November 06, 2006
A Church of England leader finally gets it
The Times reports here on the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali; he is the leading authority on Islam in the Church of England and has quite a bit to say that will no doubt put him at odds with his fellow Anglican "authority figures".
“Their complaint often boils down to the position that it is always right to intervene when Muslims are victims, as in Bosnia or Kosovo, and always wrong when the Muslims are the oppressors or terrorists, as with the Taleban or in Iraq.” Seems pretty much that way to me too.
"Failure to counter these beliefs had allowed radical Islam to flourish in Britain, and stricter checks should be made to exclude extremist clerics from the country, he said." No arguments so far, he seems almost too intelligent and too much of a realist to last.
Even the report writer seems to have grasped some fundamentals for a change: "His carefully timed intervention is at odds with the usual, equivocal utterances from Anglican bishops at pains to preserve interfaith harmony at almost any cost, even that of their own faith and Gospel commitment to evangelism." That's right usually Anglican "leaders" bend over backwards to appease even those who would destroy them.
I'm sure it comes as no surprise to my readers that: "... the bishop’s comments have provoked alarm among Muslim leaders, facing a surge in Islamophobic attacks ..." is this more of the same backlash fears?
“Their complaint often boils down to the position that it is always right to intervene when Muslims are victims, as in Bosnia or Kosovo, and always wrong when the Muslims are the oppressors or terrorists, as with the Taleban or in Iraq.” Seems pretty much that way to me too.
"Failure to counter these beliefs had allowed radical Islam to flourish in Britain, and stricter checks should be made to exclude extremist clerics from the country, he said." No arguments so far, he seems almost too intelligent and too much of a realist to last.
Even the report writer seems to have grasped some fundamentals for a change: "His carefully timed intervention is at odds with the usual, equivocal utterances from Anglican bishops at pains to preserve interfaith harmony at almost any cost, even that of their own faith and Gospel commitment to evangelism." That's right usually Anglican "leaders" bend over backwards to appease even those who would destroy them.
I'm sure it comes as no surprise to my readers that: "... the bishop’s comments have provoked alarm among Muslim leaders, facing a surge in Islamophobic attacks ..." is this more of the same backlash fears?
Tags: Chrurch of England, Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, Islam
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
